Lined on one side by a landscaped strip rising in a mound on the railroad tracks and on the other by the Place de l’Insurrection, the INHAC is a symbolic marker for the entrance to the city of Saint-Gratien. The entrance facade with its broad hipped gable echoing the other buildings that occupy the plaza. The project is organized like a geometric shape that makes maximum use of the available space to the streets so as to allow for as much room as possible for the landscape and recreational inner courtyard.
Visionner la vidéo. aEa / agence Engasser et associés. PROJECTS. The Dryline: Urban flood protection infrastructure, New. The USD 2 million Holcim Awards is the most significant international competition for sustainable design.

Shortlist unveiled for Nine Elms to Pimlico bridge competition. Amanda Levete and Hopkins are among the architects shortlisted to design a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge across London's River Thames (+ slideshow).

Four teams of architects and engineers have been selected to design the new river crossing in south-west London between Nine Elms and Pimlico, rivalling Thomas Heatherwick's proposal for a Garden Bridge elsewhere in the city. The successful teams are: Buro Happold with Marks Barfield Architects and J&L Gibbons Landscape Architects; Bystrup with Robin Snell & Partners; Arup with Amanda Levete Architects; and Arup with Hopkins Architects and Grant Associates. The finalists were selected anonymously by a jury including architect Graham Stirk of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, engineer Henry Bardsley, the Design Council's Pam Alexander and council leaders from the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Lambeth.

The shortlisted teams will now develop their ideas into detailed designs, and an overall winner is set to be named in late autumn.
Baumschlager eberle: baumschlager eberle. Baumschlager eberle: baumschlager eberle. New Valer Church \ OOIIO Architecture. New Valer Church, courtesy OOIIO Architecture A few years ago, the inhabitants of Valer, an quiet Norwegian village not too far from Oslo, surrounded by forests and close to the Swedish border, watched how sadly their ancient wooden church was on fire and got totally destroyed.

The architects are working alongside a team that includes developer Westbank, consultants Dialog, Cobalt, PFS, Buro Happold and Glotman Simpson, as well as local architect James Cheng. The 49-storey residential building will have a twisted form that is set back from the adjacent motorway flyover to prevent any windows or balconies from overlooking it. Nine floors at the base of the tower will accomodate offices, shops and restaurants, which will spill out onto a series of public plazas that stretch underneath the elevated highway.

Three ideas guided the project. The first idea was to respect the surroundings and its history “à la Doisneau”.
Brooklyn’s Wythe Hotel: So Authentic It Hurts. I’m happy to report that the press release for the Wythe Hotel, a precious new hotel in an old textile factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, drops the adjective “authentic” only once. This shows incredible self-restraint on the part of the PR agency (a profession not exactly known for self-restraint): Authenticity is to Brooklyn what sun is to San Diego. It’s practically the civic religion thereabouts. That’s not to suggest that the Wythe is coy about its "authenticity," even if the press release doesn’t beat you over the head with it. Built in 1901, the factory has been converted into a 72-room hotel and restored to a T, its industrial character “beautifully preserved,” with every last pine beam and arched window and cast-iron column shellacked and fetishized.